14 Dec 2018

More than 250 DSTA staff dived into a wide spectrum of cybersecurity-related challenges in the inaugural Cyber Capture-the-Flag (CTF) held on 7 December 2018.

Organised by Cybersecurity Programme Centre (PC) with support from Chief Information Office and InfoComm Infrastructure PC, the CTF saw teams from multiple domains come together to solve cybersecurity challenges in network-based attacks.

During the CTF, the teams raced against time to solve a myriad of challenges in the Beginner Track and the Pro Track. These included finding vulnerabilities in websites, analysing network traffic for ‘flags’ and solving challenges in encryption techniques.

Congratulating the winners, Director Cybersecurity Tan Ah Tuan spoke about the importance of cybersecurity for defence. He said: “In the face of increasing connectivity and emerging threats, having a strong foundation in cybersecurity is critical for defence engineers. Organising this CTF helps to build up staff competencies in an engaging, hands-on manner.”

“Through this CTF, I gained a much better appreciation about the severe consequences of insecure software development practices, and will endeavour to practise cyber by design in the projects I work on,” shared Engineer (C3 Development) Pan Peining, who was part of the team that came in second in the Beginner Track.